Wounds, Scars, Community

I dedicate this post to Amber. ❤

This phase of life is constantly throwing curveballs, a bit of chaos here and there, along with some unexpected love from new friends and neighbors we are getting more acquainted with.  As I’m going through the paces of daily mom-life at home with my guy, I can’t help but notice the contrasts and comparisons I see in myself and others–“I’m not nearly as structured as she is,” or “I definitely don’t make a big deal about a mess like that family just did.”  It’s hard to just sit back and allow everyone to be themselves, including me, when you come to know people and start seeing the differences between lives.  But I think that this process couldn’t be more healthy.  We are each going through our journeys, and the way I see it–God made those journeys so vastly different and allowed our lives to have these varying vantage points because he wanted us to grow and learn from one another no matter what steps we are going through on the journey towards our own path.

I have wounds.  As do you.  As much as we like to think otherwise, we have these pains that we carry deep in our being–nothing can quite shake them, even stubbornly ignoring their presence.  These wounds may be caused by skin color, gender, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, lovers, friends.  These will always occur in life–a realization that is hard for me to come to grips with as a mom.  But they will, and they create a minds eye with which we see the world:  We see those who have hurt us, and we see those who can create loving poultices of care to place over our wounds until they heal more fully.  However, these wounds are quite deep and quite vibrantly given to us, and they often remain as scars–not totally new, fresh perfect healed images–but rather scars that we try to cover and forget.

Now, many of us would rather hide than deal with any of this.  We would rather run far away when we have been hurt and see ourselves hurting others–we want to cover, to mask, and to move on without dealing with any of it in real terms.  We may even seek out people we think will allow us to stay far away from those issues–those who will not ask probing or difficult questions, or challenge our strange ways of living with our darkness.  However, I think that very way of living, that way of being–I think it makes a hole in your heart bigger than you can compensate for with fake shallow friendships and surface level conversations.  I think the only way to overcome your longings for what might have been in an “Adam & Eve perfect” world is to confront them completely–but how do you do that?

I think that within community (if you went to my college, you’re probably laughing right about now.  That was the “buzzword” on campus.  That was the annoying phrase every student felt churning in their brain when they wished it would leave them alone.  It’s all we heard nearly all the time as transfers or as freshmen–and it carried through right into graduation for most people,) you are able to find those missing links to bridge the gap.  You may organically find yourself searching, and finding, people who are genuine and sincere, people who love as Christ loves and meets you where you’re at, because in essence they have the same struggles and pains as you–only perhaps in different areas.  They were not met where they were at.  They were not loved for who they are.  They were told they were never going to be good enough.  So when they see you, who too was told these same things, they have a twinge of pain in their hearts and see the ache in your own.  They realize that you are there, shining with your aloneness like a little star out in a lonely space of sky, and that both of you together have the same thing resonating.  The hunger to feel that you belong.  The ache to feel accepted and wanted and delighted in–to be seen as interesting.  This is what I am finding.

And no stabs at anyone’s family or anyone’s habits of character (we all have our flaws), but as an adult I am seeing that my wounds are being soothed by community because God beckons me towards women in particular who are very gentle and open and cast their arms wide for my grief and my pain.  I am finding that they do not have the same flaws I saw growing up, from those I love, and while they have different ones–they are just what I need.

Community.  What does that word mean to you?  As a new friend I’ve got speaks of community she says: “Here’s all the hairiness and dirt and craziness,” (that’s a paraphrase I’m sure).  It’s true.  If you truly want to have your wounds let go of, if you really want to be free of the bondage in your soul, you cannot isolate yourself and create a bubble of people who are safe enough to talk to, but nice enough not to ever ask the questions you need asked.  You will have to find people who dig into your being and come out with a rock that you didn’t even realize was there.  Sometimes these people we allow into our community may be able to see those things we are hiding even from ourselves.  And it will be gritty and dirty and you will probably get offended, and so will others.  But the beauty of the gospel is that forgiveness and grace we allow others and give to ourselves–on account of the grace we were given.  Community means I trust you.  It means I will share my family, my food, and my fortune (as well as misfortune) with you.  What does that mean?  It means apologies for “super real life,” when kids are screaming and the food gets burned.  It also means we don’t have to offer any apologies because we are already accepted and those things are a real part of our lives ever day.  It means our friends in community understand.  It also means that our friends can become a sort of family we never had–a family in Christ where we can heal and we can talk about our pain from growing up or from different stages that are very difficult.  A family we have because God brings them to us.

I am so thankful that I have been accepted where I am at.  I am so grateful for the agape love of Jesus Christ.  So small was my heart when I first accepted him into my life, and how big and full and hurt and fearful and joyful and sad it has been since that first day I decided to lean on him.  I am so happy to find people here that I can be real with.  Who allow me to talk.  Who listen.  But who also speak truth.  I want my roots to go down deep here.

Just a few things I’ve been thinking about in my blogging absence.

All my love,

-M